Democrats, Too, Plan to Slam Washington in August

House Democrats and Republicans appear to be taking the same messagehome for August: Washington is broken.

The only difference is whom they’re pointing the finger at for breaking it.

In the Democrats’ case, the August recess marching orders for the rank and file very clearly advocate blaming the House Republican majority.

But because they also have a president to defend, the recess packet handed out Monday night includes instructions on how to promote Obamacare, slam the sequester, champion a comprehensive immigration rewrite and advocate for gun control.

Playbooks full of talking points and messaging tactics, designed to help lawmakers effectively hawk the party line back home during the five-week break from legislating, are a tradition on both sides of the aisle. More often than not, they are simply regurgitations of phrases and narratives that creatures of Capitol Hill by now know by heart.

But this year, a side-by-side comparison of the Democratic and Republican playbooks offers perspective on the parties’ starkly divergent ideologies — in terms of tone, substance and strategy.

In the News

Matthew Yglesias: “America’s constitutional democracy is going to collapse.” “Some day … there is going to be a collapse of the legal and political order and its replacement by something else.” “The breakdown of American constitutional democracy is a contrarian view. But it’s nothing more than the view that rather than everyone being wrong about ...